Prelude to a Wedding (The Wedding Series Book 1)

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  An hour later she stood, bemused, amid pumpkins of every size, shape and construction, and thought that if Linus of “Peanuts” fame was right that a Great Pumpkin with magical powers did exist, then Paul Monroe had a direct line to the big orange guy.

  That was the only explanation she could come up with for how she had come to be here. One minute she was sitting in her living room checking real estate listings and the next minute she was a passenger in her own car—“You said the hatchback’s better for hauling, and we’re going to have a lot of pumpkins to haul,” had been Paul’s explanation when he snagged her keys—and the minute after that she stood here in pumpkin land, laughing.

  She’d laughed so much in the past half hour that her sides ached. She would never again look at a pumpkin without remembering the outrageous personalities Paul had assigned to the gourds they’d collected. Then he and the man running the pumpkin stand had indulged in a round of good-natured wrangling over price that had set her off again.

  “Boy, remind me never to have you around when I’m haggling,” Paul ordered after they’d settled their orange army on the car’s deck, separated and cushioned from one another by sweet straw from the stand operator.

  She smiled out the window, not bothering to respond. She felt too content, as golden and glowing as the afternoon, as mellow as the approaching dusk. Fading sunlight gilded the hardier leaves still clinging to branches while their fallen brethren wove an orange and gold coverlet. The trees rose high and straight, arching their limbs in the bare outline of what had been a summer canopy.

  They’d left an area of cornfields and woods interspersed with stables, and the houses now were closing ranks. The street was trafficked, but peaceful. A straight, orderly artery going...where?

  “This isn’t the way to Elmhurst. Where are we going?”

  “I thought we’d off-load some of these guys before we went to your place.”

  “I wondered why you bought so many. But then I thought it was probably a whim.” She meant to tease him, but she also believed him totally capable of such an impulse.

  “It was.”

  “And now you’ve decided to set up your own stand somewhere else? Where?”

  “That’s an idea.” He seemed to consider, then discard it. “Nah. I like my idea better.”

  “Which is?”

  She saw the sign for the town they were entering at the same time she heard his words. “We’ll take some to my folks. They can use some jack-o’-lanterns, too.”

  “Lake Forest.” She read the sign aloud, heard the dread in her voice and, knowing the tone would have carried over, was grateful she hadn’t said the other two words in her mind at the moment: your parents.

  Chapter Four